March 4, 2008
Ridgeview Elementary School

What Does This Mean for Teachers and Teaching?

Digital Storytelling

Blogs

Wikis

Great Online Resources

West Bay Pro-D Presentation

HTML Counter

Digital Immigrants and Digital Natives

for the most part, we're using educational facilities and methods developed in the Industrial Age
most teachers are digital immigrants (this is changing)
we're teaching students who were born in and will work in the Information Age (they're digital natives!)
consider this...

What Does This Mean for Teachers and Teaching?

in the Industrial Age, a person could learn everything there was to know about a subject
knowledge was transferred from the teacher to the student
in the Information Age, we cannot hope to know everything
therefore, the ablility to think critically and the abilities to find, analyze and sythesize information are increasingly important
knowledge is built, shared, changed, edited, mashed, rearranged

Literacies and Baby Steps

students still need to know how to read, write and do math!
they also need to become fluent in digital literacy
most kids can surf the web, send emails and use a word processor - what next?

Digital Storytelling

primary and intermediate levels
- Kid Pix
- Microsoft Movie maker (with help from a buddy class, maybe?)
- Power Point (again, possibly with help)
have kids work in pairs or with an older buddy
examples

cat to but.ppt

amys_energytransfertriangle.ppt

Ryohei's PSA

Blogs

blogs have lots of educational uses
the great thing about blogs is that they give kids a chance to publish their work online for a large audience
blogs can also be used as simple web pages to give information to parents and students
there are lots of free blog hosting sites online
not all of them are great for elementary education
have to talk to kids about internet safety and not using "real" names (I use two letters of first and two letters of last and I assign their passwords)

Grade 7 blog

Wiki on Educational Blogging (some cool links!)

If you want to start your own blog, try going to ePals SchoolBlog. You will need to set up an account and it does take a few days, but it's a great, safe, free site!

Wikis

the term wiki comes from the Hawaiian bus called a "wikiwiki" and means quick
wikis are a quick way to create and share information

the most famous one is wikipedia
the great thing about wikis is that they are collaborative
this is a wiki!

Grade 7 Socials Wiki

If you want to set up a wiki, I recommend Wikispaces. It's free to K12 educators if you are using it for educational purposes and it's easy to use for the kids! Here is a great PowerPoint put together by the people at Wikispaces that you can use to help you out! In addition, if you ever have questions or need help, they are, without a doubt, super-fast at getting back to you!

Help.Wikispaces.Teacher+Presentation.ppt